Growing Up In The Chaos Of Mental Illness
I am the child of the Mentally Ill. My family wrote the book on dysfunction and back then having Bi-Polar didn’t have the clarity it does now, we didn’t know what it meant.
Being the child of someone who has bi-polar is like being caught in the eye of a twister that never stops. Maybe if I had known what it all meant things would have been different.
The highs and lows of living with someone with Mental Illness and doesn’t accept it can change you. Personally the eggshells and minefields of not setting them off or fielding the drama made me a quiet and reserved child.
Until one day this person just criticized everything I did one minute and clung to me the next. I felt like it was a roller coaster I couldn’t escape from and no matter how I tried to make things better, they just got worse.
I walked away at one point to save my own sanity and many will judge that decision. However, sometimes walking away is all you can do when you’ve done all you can realizing it isn’t your fault.
Now that she is fading away all I can think about are the amazing times. The sacrifices she made and the lesson she taught me. I can no longer hold onto the blame I have carried around so long because love is like that.
